After reaching manhood, Zeus forced Cronus to disgorge first the stone (which was set down at Pytho under the glens of Parnassus to be a sign to mortal men, the Omphalos) then his siblings in reverse order of swallowing. In some versions, Metis gave Cronus an emetic to force him to disgorge the babies, or Zeus cut Cronus' stomach open. Then Zeus released the brothers of Cronus, the Gigantes, the Hecatonchires and the Cyclopes, from their dungeon in Tartarus, killing their guard, Campe.

As a token of their appreciation, the Cyclopes gave him thunder and the thunderbolt, or lightning, which had previously been hidden by Gaia. Together, Zeus and his brothers and sisters, along with the Gigantes, Hecatonchires and Cyclopes overthrew Cronus and the other Titans, in the combat called the Titanomachy. The defeated Titans were then cast into a shadowy underworld region known as Tartarus. Atlas, one of the titans that fought against Zeus, was punished by having to hold up the sky.

After the battle with the Titans, Zeus shared the world with his elder brothers, Poseidon and Hades, by drawing lots: Zeus got the sky and air, Poseidon the waters, and Hades the world of the dead (the underworld). The ancient Earth, Gaia, could not be claimed; she was left to all three, each according to their capabilities, which explains why Poseidon was the "earth-shaker" (the god of earthquakes) and Hades claimed the humans that died (see also Penthus).

Gaia resented the way Zeus had treated the Titans, because they were her children. Soon after taking the throne as king of the gods, Zeus had to fight some of Gaia's other children, the monsters Typhon and Echidna. He vanquished Typhon and trapped him under Mount Etna, but left Echidna and her children alive.

Susmariosep, where do you get the idea that we're obligated to do your homework for you? It's not up to us to come up with a coherent concept of "God" for you. You are the one who is trying to add this thing, "God," to the inventory of known entities and offer it as a causal mechanism for the existence of the Cosmos. If you can't or won't provide a coherent concept of "God" and provide the evidence that "He" is the reason the Cosmos exists, then we, as skeptics of your theory, can just shrug and keep our Standard Model of physics, which works very well for most things. Since we're not trying to promote any "God"-based theories, we have no reason to try to create a coherent "God" concept and preach it to the theists. The incoherence of "God" concepts is one of the major reasons we're atheists. It's not our problem to solve.

A number of criticisms have been raised against the "God" concept you've offered, and you have failed to respond to them by showing that they're incorrect or improving your "God" concept. You seem to expect us to do that for you. Why should we?

Analogy:

Let's say you're a physicist. Another physicist comes up to you and says he has a brilliant new explanation for the phenomena attributed to dark matter and dark energy: quasion particles. You ask: "OK, what's a quasion particle supposed to be like? What are its properties, and how do the equations that describe it incorporate into the mathematics of quantum mechanics and relativity?" The physicist replies, "Why don't you give me your concept of quasions, and explain how it fits in with the rest of physics?" Should you reply, "Sorry, that's not my job. You're the one proposing this quasion theory, not me. If you can't tell me what they're supposed to be and provide evidence, I have no reason to accept your theory," the physicist replies, "I'm going to have to dispense with dealing with you."

Do you think that physicist is doing a good job of establishing the validity of quasion theory? Why or why not?

Aside: in one of your previous posts, you finally came out and admitted that you're trying to offer the Christian god as your proposed creator. This contradicts the God concept you offered previously: unlike most deities, the Christian god can't be unique, because there's supposed to be three of him (the Trinity).

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"The question of whether atheists are, you know, right, typically gets sidestepped in favor of what is apparently the much more compelling question of whether atheists are jerks."

As a nearly complete aside, and noting Kcrady's statement above, it's worth noting that, Susmariosep, your espoused God-concept (what little espousing you've done so far) has more in common with this guy from time bandits:

Than this guy:

As he points out - it's not my job to define god for you; if you'd like us to use a common definition, you should likely supply one of your own. Otherwise, I think i'm going to choose The Jade Emperor and the Heavenly Bureaucracy. That should be fun, don't you think?

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"But to us, there is but one god, plus or minus one." - 1 Corinthians 8:6+/-2

Just tell me if you have any of information about the concept of God for example among Christians, in God's fundamental relation to the universe.

If you don't have any information, then I cannot see how you can at all talk about there being no evidence whatever of God's existence.

I am not asking you to accept God and His attributes, but to request you to just give me what information you have of God in His fundamental relation to the universe, for example, among Christians.

I hope you are getting connected with me, if not I guess there is no point with us continuing to talk, and I will just relate with Hal and people like Hal but please everyone do not engage in distractions by resorting to harsh language.

There's plenty of point in us continuing to talk, but talking does not just consist of you asking the questions and other people answering them. It also consists of you answering the questions other people ask of you, or at least making the effort to. If this is to be a two-way conversation, then the questions also have to go both ways.

I'm familiar with the common Christian conception of God as being omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent (I believe that's sometimes referred to as "omnimax"). My conclusion is that none of them can be considered valid attributes for any being based on hearsay evidence out of the Bible or other Christian sources, and we have no other evidence at all of any of those properties existing. As an analogy, there's a nursery rhyme that mentions a cow jumping over a moon. However, nobody has ever seen a cow doing this, and we have evidence that cows simply cannot jump very high. It is illogical, then, to conclude that said nursery rhyme actually describes a real event.

With all due respect, I am not asking atheists here to describe God in detail.

But I am asking atheists here to read up on or ask around for the information of what is the concept of God among theists, in particular in His fundamental relation to the universe.

Well that would be a near impossibility, because every theists concept of God is different.

[...]

That is where you and I are not in concurrence, because for me among the great majority of theists there is a core of the concept of God where God is defined as the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.

You do not accept that from me? Well, then you do some serious honest research on the concept of God in His fundamental relation to the universe from the best exponents of God's existence today.

And do also some research on evidence.

But above all do real thinking instead of rote memory recall on everything that you come to in your research on the concept of God and also in the present context of this thread, on evidence.

I will just attend to posters here before I review the posts of Hal here and try to explain to everyone here why I feel that it is futile to relate with him.

[Bolding from Sus] Until you can explain to us how we are supposed to be able to describe in detail any god when we, as atheists, assume there isn't one, don't expect a whole lot of success in this conversation. The god most of us don't believe in has no height, weight, color, birthmarks, hairstyle, ideas, thoughts, power, abilities, personality, kids or political affiliation. With that in mind, your demand for details is fruitless.

With all due respect, I am not asking atheists here to describe God in detail.

But I am asking atheists here to read up on or ask around for the information of what is the concept of God among theists, in particular in His fundamental relation to the universe.

Oh! Certainly. I've read a few things this morning, and will be glad to poke around at offering a few more this afternoon. So far, I have the following - and while my tone may be tongue-in-cheek, rest assured that these are all god-concepts prevalent in the literature of human history:

- God licked the universe into existence, then fed the aspects of nature with her udders before vanishing entirely from the narrative.- God died, and the universe was formed from his body, blood, secretions, hair...- A great celestial flower opened, bringing forth god, who, in sleeping, dreamed everything into existence - and it shall vanish when he awakes.- God is uncaring and distant, and this world was made as a refinery of sorts, a place where perfection is acquired in increments through repeated lifetimes of forgetfulness and effort; regardless, it does not interfere.- There are two gods, and it is the god of Evil that created the world, that it might have something to toy with.

So far, I haven't found a single unifying concept - but there certainly is a lot of literature about all of these! I haven't even touched on the most popular god-concepts.

That is where you and I are not in concurrence, because for me among the great majority of theists there is a core of the concept of God where God is defined as the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.

A concept is not necessarily the reality of a thing.

Quote

You do not accept that from me? Well, then you do some serious honest research on the concept of God in His fundamental relation to the universe from the best exponents of God's existence today.

Why should we waste our time doing such research? What's to be gained by compiling an encyclopedic knowledge of other people's hypotheses and delusions?

Quote

And do also some research on evidence.

Research evidence? No, Susmariosep - The usual procedure is to collect evidence and analyze it.

I give my input on what is my concept of evidence, and I request you do the same.

Evidence is a collection of facts used to demonstrate what the truth is.

Now, please, Hal, give your example of how we come to facts.

And as regards Zeus, I have from the start invited everyone to concentrate on the adequate and up to date concept of God from among the best exponents of God's existence among theists today.

That is no recourse to popularity at all, if you don't agree with me, then as usual I will not be derailed to discuss with you how the best exponents today among theists on the concept of God is not an appeal to popularity, it is a hint to you how to get to the correct information on the adequate and up to date concept of God from among theists today; just you do your research and thinking instead of bringing in irrelevancies.

We come to a fact by using our external senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste to come to the presence of a fact, for example, you want to come to the fact of the sourness or sweetness of an orange, then you apply your taste buds to the meat/juice of the orange.

That is my example of how we come to a fact, and I am answering to your question addressed to me on how we come to facts.

I am still waiting for you to produce your example of how we come to facts.

Susmariosep, where do you get the idea that we're obligated to do your homework for you?

[...]

That is not a fact that I am requiring you to do my homework.

You owe it to yourself to get the most adequate and up to date information on what is the concept of God and also the concept of evidence, for the topic of this thread is "God -- The Evidence."

How can you engage in this topic without having first to know what is the concept of God and of evidence.

You want for example to talk about universe and infinity and evidence with people as to have a productive intelligent honest discussion, don't you all have to first acquaint yourselves all of you on what is the concept of universe, of infinity, and of evidence in the market today of ideas among humans?

And come to concurrence on concepts, otherwise you are all talking irrelevantly to the whole business of universe, infinity, and evidence.

I have done my homework and my concept of God is that He is the uniaue uncreated creator of the created universe, and of evidence that it is any fact man knows leading him to know another fact.

So, you do your research and thinking and come up with your concepts, and we will work to hammer out the mutually agreed on concepts of God as of evidence, so that we will not be talking nonsense and you and people don't even realize that it is all nonsense: because there has not yet been any concurrence (thus joining of the issue) at all agreed on what the concepts are all about.

Don't say I didn't warn you all Just wait till he has nearly everyone on ignore, then he'll find some schmuk (umm, willing participant!) to the exclusion of all others. Eventually (if he's not banned first - that happens alot with him all over the internet), that one last person will give up - at which point he'll disappear for a week/month, then come back with the exact same topic (worded slightly differently, yrreg-style) and start the process all over again.

I've participated in threads for almost a decade with him at various places, I'm surprised it took him so long to find us. I'm quite sure he's ignoring me - doesn't bother me in the slightest

We could go (and may yet get to) scores of pages deep, and Sum still won't have moved his 'argument' forward one iota.

It's as if someone tried to study the Socratic method (is that spelled right? my checker is confused) in a language they barely understood, then broke it down to individual words, jumbled em up,then tried to translate the result into english.

About 4 years ago, someone on another forum programmed a Yrreg simulator, based on a few hundred of his posts. It was actually quite good - much of it's output was near indistingusible from his actual posts (I'll see if I can find it this weekend, if that particular forum saved it).

He can be quite entertaining however, espescially when he thinks someone is 'following' him along - I've seen him put up a post several pages long, entirely composed of English letters and words - but it's as if some machine jumbled them all up, reversing and repeating, until the only thing left to say about his posts is 'well, they are in English'....

Just tell me if you have any of information about the concept of God for example among Christians, in God's fundamental relation to the universe.

If you don't have any information, then I cannot see how you can at all talk about there being no evidence whatever of God's existence.

I am not asking you to accept God and His attributes, but to request you to just give me what information you have of God in His fundamental relation to the universe, for example, among Christians.

I hope you are getting connected with me, if not I guess there is no point with us continuing to talk, and I will just relate with Hal and people like Hal but please everyone do not engage in distractions by resorting to harsh language.

There's plenty of point in us continuing to talk, but talking does not just consist of you asking the questions and other people answering them. It also consists of you answering the questions other people ask of you, or at least making the effort to. If this is to be a two-way conversation, then the questions also have to go both ways.

[...]

[/quote]

Before anything else, you have questions for me about what is my concept of God and of evidence, don't you?

And I have given my concept of God and of evidence from the very first post in this thread that I contributed (though I am not the author of this thread):

God in concept is the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.

Eivdence in concept is any fact man knows leading him to know another fact.

Now, it is my turn to ask or to request you to proffer whatever if any at all information you have about the concept of God and the concept of evidence.

I am not requesting you to ask me questions about my concepts, etc., but I want to read what you have for your stock information of what is the concept of God and what is the concept of evidence.

Then we can from your side and my side start questioning how our information respectively can be worked out as to come to a mutually concurred on concept of God as also concept of evidence, for this thread is about God -- The Evidence.

Why is it logical that you produce your stock information if you have any on God in concept and on evidence in concept, instead of asking me to answer your questions on my information of what I know to be the concept of God and the concept of evidence (if you don't have any stock information, then you do research and think and come up with your information)...

Why is that logical?

It is logical because you got to have at least some information already otherwise you will be into endless questioning me on my information, and that is not going to get us quickly and productively to come to concurrence.

Here, let me look up a dictionary from Finnish atheists on what is God.

God: A deity or a god, is a postulated supernatural entity, usually, but not always, of significant power, worshipped, thought holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, or respected by humans. They assume a variety of forms, but are frequently depicted as having human or animal form. Sometimes it is considered blasphemous to imagine the deity as having any concrete form. They are usually immortal. They are commonly assumed to have personalities and to possess consciousness, intellects, desires, and emotions much like humans.

Such natural phenomena as lightning, floods, storms, other "acts of God”, and miracles are attributed to them, and they may be thought to be the authorities or controllers of every aspect of human life (such as birth or the afterlife).

Some deities are asserted to be the directors of time and fate itself, to be the givers of human law and morality, to be the ultimate judges of human worth and behaviour, and to be the designers and creators of the Earth or the universe.

Addressing atheists in this forum:

From that entry composed by Finnish atheists on the concept of God, you can now just distill from it in a few words what is the concept of God that you atheists (not Finnish atheists) can see to be the adequate and up to date concept of God for an information for yourselves.

For myself, from that entry of the Finnish Dictionary of Atheism, I can distill this concept of God, namely, 'the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe," of course adding materials from my own stock knowledge as a theist of the concept of God.

That is where you and I are not in concurrence, because for me among the great majority of theists there is a core of the concept of God where God is defined as the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.

A concept is not necessarily the reality of a thing.

[...]

I am in concurrence with you on that, a concept is not the reality represented by the concept.

I have been saying that already from the start, that first we work on concepts then we go to the objective reality of existing things to search for the entities represented by concepts.

I invite everyone here specially atheists and theists to first come to concurrence on the concept of God and the concept of evidence.

Here is my concept of God: the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.

And here is my concept of evidence: any fact man knows leading him to know another fact.

The certainty of God's existence or nonexistence must before everything else start with concurrence on the concept of God, otherwise folks i.e. everyone is talking past everyone's else head, and that is irrational behavior.

Now, since atheists insist on evidence, then specially atheists should work first to come to concurrence with theists on a common mutually accepted concept of what is evidence; otherwise everyone would be talking past everyone's head, which is irrational behavior.

First, we deal with concepts, then we will go into the actual objective reality of existing things outside our mind to search for God.

Glad to meet someone with whom I and she do concur on that, the concept is not the reality but we have got to have a concept if we want to search in the reality realm the entity corresponding to the concept.

If god is eternal, why does any description have to be "up to date"? Xenu showed up in the 1950's--he's up-to-date compared to Allah, but that doesn't mean he is real.

Why not go for one of the oldest concepts of god still in existence? The Hindu pantheon is around 5000 years old. There are hundreds of dieties to pick from, so you can go with whoever flips your cookies.

I suggest Durga, goddess of the moral order of creation. She rides a lion, is attended by pretty maidens, has nine manifestations, and is damn kickass.

My evidence for her existence is that there are nearly a billion Hindus who believe in her, and she is depicted in Hindu stories and artwork. Like this:

There's no need to post lies like this. We can all see what you demand from us in your previous writings.

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"In the end theologians are jealous of science, for they are aware that it has greater authority than do their own ways of finding “truth”: dogma, authority, and revelation. Science does find truth, faith does not. " - Jerry Coyne

So, you do your research and thinking and come up with your concepts, and we will work to hammer out the mutually agreed on concepts of God as of evidence, so that we will not be talking nonsense and you and people don't even realize that it is all nonsense: because there has not yet been any concurrence (thus joining of the issue) at all agreed on what the concepts are all about.

The concept of god is nonsense, as the very idea of god is incoherent and nonsensical. Ergo, as per your above, the only options are to talk nonsense or to not talk about the concept of god.

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"When we landed on the moon, that was the point where god should have come up and said 'hello'. Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and they make it to the grey one, you f**king turn up and say 'well done'."

I suggest Durga, goddess of the moral order of creation. She rides a lion, is attended by pretty maidens, has nine manifestations, and is damn kickass.

I don't practise Hinduism, but I've liked and respected Durga for many years. I think I first discovered Her in a choose-your-own-mantra paperback about 30 years ago. I vastly prefer the concept of a lion-riding hands-on dealer of justice to the usual offerings from the Abrahamic crowd.

Glad to meet someone with whom I and she do concur on that, the concept is not the reality but we have got to have a concept if we want to search in the reality realm the entity corresponding to the concept.

Fair enough.

Now, how about a discussion on the pros and cons of the "uncreated creator" meme, as we seem to be diametrically opposed on that front?

You owe it to yourself to get the most adequate and up to date information on what is the concept of God and also the concept of evidence, for the topic of this thread is "God -- The Evidence."

This presupposes that there's such a thing as "adequate and up-to-date information" on the concept of "God." "Adequate" presupposes that there's a standard of adequacy, that is, an actual god/goddess/pantheon/whatever against which the adequacy of various god-concepts can be measured. "Up-to-date" presupposes that there's an ongoing process of inquiry and discovery about god/goddess/pantheon/whatever that is improving over time. Again, such "improvement" can only be measured against the standard of an actual god/goddess/pantheon/whatever.

Here's the problem: nobody has ever come close to demonstrating that an actual god/goddess/pantheon/whatever actually exists. Until this happens, we have no reason to think that the writings of N.T. Wright are any more "adequate" or "up-to-date" than the Pyramid Texts, or vice versa. You have a god-concept that you actually believe in, so in your eyes, whatever theologians produce a god-concept that comes closest to "the unique, uncreated creator of the created universe" are the "best," most "adequate" and "up-to-date" of the lot. Since we don't believe in your god-concept, or anyone else's, we don't think any of them are "adequate" or "up-to-date." We think they're wrong. That's what makes us atheists instead of Hindus or Christians or Wiccans or Voudoun shamans or...etc., etc., etc..

Now, you reject all of those other god-concepts for reasons that may very well be similar to our own. The difference between you and us is that we add one more god-concept to the list of failures: yours. If you would like to persuade us that your god-concept is an accurate understanding of an actual god that really exists, it's up to you to pony up the evidence for your god. To ask us what our god-concept is is a waste of time because we. don't. have. one. That's why you're seeing all these posts about Zeus and Durga and so forth. To us, they're all equally false, so when you insist on getting god-concepts out of us, we can whimsically dig a few out of humanity's vast theological compost bin and toss 'em on the floor in front of you. "You want a god-concept? There ya go. Oh, wait, what about this one? Or this one?" And so on. But none of them actually represent the god-concept we think is most "adequate" and "up-to-date" because...

How can you engage in this topic without having first to know what is the concept of God and of evidence.

Good question. As atheists, we don't think there is any such thing as "the" concept of "God." That presupposes that there is an actual "God" (Goddess/Pantheon/Whatever) that really exists, against which different human conceptions of the divine may be measured, and the most accurate of which be singled out as "the" concept of "God." Since the question of whether or not one or more deities exists is the issue being debated here, your assumption that there's such a thing as "the" concept of God (i.e., that there's one that's accurate) is begging the question. One of the major arguments for atheism is "Nope, they're all incoherent, self-contradictory, meaningless, or have no referent in reality." That is, there is no such thing as "the" concept of the divine because no theist has produced one that is meaningful, logically coherent, and demonstrably corresponds to any real entity (a real deity or deities).

But now you are here, with a concept of "God" that you think is meaningful, coherent, and corresponds to a "God" that actually exists. Well alright then. Step up and provide your evidence so that we can evaluate it against the measuring stick of reality. If you can show us that your concept of "God" corresponds even partially to an actual God that really exists, then bravo: you have shown us that you have "the" concept of God. Now we have a starting point from which we can launch an inquiry into developing better, more accurate, more "up-to-date" concepts of God. If you can't do it, guess what: your god-concept gets relegated to the vast theological compost bin with the rest of 'em, and asking us to provide god-concepts for you won't save it.

You want for example to talk about universe and infinity and evidence with people as to have a productive intelligent honest discussion, don't you all have to first acquaint yourselves all of you on what is the concept of universe, of infinity, and of evidence in the market today of ideas among humans?

And come to concurrence on concepts, otherwise you are all talking irrelevantly to the whole business of universe, infinity, and evidence.

We can discuss "universe" with people because there is one. We can wave our arms around pointing at it. We can discus "infinity" because it is a coherent and useable mathematical abstraction that can be derived from tangible finitude.

"Start counting the grains of sand on this beach."

"One, two, three, four, five--"

"Now imagine that this beach just goes on forever--no matter how far you go, there's still more beach, just like no matter how high you count you can always add on another number. That's 'infinity.'"

If we had dozens or thousands of different concepts of "infinity," with mathematicians in India proposing something entirely different than mathematicians in Rome, etc., and none of them could relate it to anything that demonstrably exists in any way, then we would be in the same situation with "infinity" that we are in with regard to "the divine." There are all kinds of different, incompatible concepts of god/goddess/pantheon/whatever in the world today and throughout human history. Nobody has provided any evidence that any particular such concept is in any way superior to any other. If you can be the first, step right on up.

So, you do your research and thinking and come up with your concepts, and we will work to hammer out the mutually agreed on concepts of God

We'll agree on a concept of "God" when you can show us that there is one for a concept to correspond to. It would be silly for a bunch of people who had never seen a tree to argue over their concepts of "tree." Show them a tree, and their concepts will line up soon enough. Show us a real "God," and the same thing will happen.

so that we will not be talking nonsense and you and people don't even realize that it is all nonsense: because there has not yet been any concurrence (thus joining of the issue) at all agreed on what the concepts are all about.

All "concepts of god/goddess/pantheon/whatever" are nonsense until an actual referent for the concept--a real god, goddess, pantheon, whatever--can be found. Without an actual referent--one or more real deities--there's no basis for comparing different concepts of the divine, and any "agreement" people might arrive at is as ridiculous as agreeing on the color of a snipe's plumage, or what unicorn poop smells like.

You have the floor. Show us the evidence for a deity, any deity. Then we'll be in a position to start figuring out which human concept of the divine most closely matches the reality.

« Last Edit: July 21, 2012, 01:49:28 AM by kcrady »

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"The question of whether atheists are, you know, right, typically gets sidestepped in favor of what is apparently the much more compelling question of whether atheists are jerks."

I have done my homework and my concept of God is that He is the uniaue uncreated creator of the created universe,

(Emphasis added)

Your offering, as your concept of "God," "the unique uncreated creator of the created universe." Yet, since it's a "He" rather than a "She" or an "It" or a "Zie" (genderless personal pronoun) that means it has an attribute you're not including in your proposed concept--masculinity. Any more attributes you're not including? See, this shows that your proposed god-concept is not even adequate on your own terms. It fails to accurately describe the god you actually believe in.

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"The question of whether atheists are, you know, right, typically gets sidestepped in favor of what is apparently the much more compelling question of whether atheists are jerks."

If god is eternal, why does any description have to be "up to date"? Xenu showed up in the 1950's--he's up-to-date compared to Allah, but that doesn't mean he is real.

[...]

Because theists have updated their concept of God as man's knowledge of reality expands; but at a very ancient time man has come to the concept of God which I have concisely formulated as the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.

For Christians from the beginning of the Christian faith the concept of God is "creator of heaven and earth," which is in their common document called The Apostles' Creed -- first verse of The Apostles' Creed.

And for the people which produced the ancient document called Genesis, a document much earlier than The Apostles' Creed, it is the entity "Who in the beginning made heaven and earth" -- see Gen. 1:1.

Now we know much more about life and the universe, but the concept of God is still essentially as the entity Who created heaven and earth, though the concept today which I want to adopt as the common one for theists of the Abrahamic faiths, in order to make the concept more elaborate in God's fundamental relation to the universe, is the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe.

So, if atheists want to describe themselves as lacking in any beliefs in gods, goddesses, deities, divinities, etc., just concentrate on God the unique uncreated creator and operator of the created universe, instead of taking up with gods like Zeus and Thor whatever.

Glad to meet someone with whom I and she do concur on that, the concept is not the reality but we have got to have a concept if we want to search in the reality realm the entity corresponding to the concept.

Fair enough.

Now, how about a discussion on the pros and cons of the "uncreated creator" meme, as we seem to be diametrically opposed on that front?

You bring in a new word meme here in this thread -- unless somebody earlier already brought up that word.

Do you care to talk about the pros and cons of the concept of God as the unique uncreated creator and operator of the uncreated universe, that is my concept for God.

Or you have your own concept of God, the information about the concept of God that is, and perhaps you feel like calling God in your concept of God as the meme whatever that is supposed to mean your concept of God about which you care to tell readers here.

That is a novel way for you to fashion your concept of God, but is it what theists know to be the concept of God.

You see, unless you have a concept of God that is substantially in congruence with the concept of God from theists like yours truly, you are not lacking in the belief in the God that counts among theists.

Okay, let me try again.

As you are an atheist I understand you want to describe yourself as lacking belief in any gods, goddesses, deities, divinities, etc.

Don't you see it to be reasonable from your part that you have got to know correctly the concept of God among theists that is adequate and up to date, otherwise you are lacking belief in the God that counts among theists today.

You owe it to yourself to get the most adequate and up to date information on what is the concept of God and also the concept of evidence, for the topic of this thread is "God -- The Evidence."

This presupposes that there's such a thing as "adequate and up-to-date information" on the concept of "God." "Adequate" presupposes that there's a standard of adequacy, that is, an actual god/goddess/pantheon/whatever against which the adequacy of various god-concepts can be measured. "Up-to-date" presupposes that there's an ongoing process of inquiry and discovery about god/goddess/pantheon/whatever that is improving over time. Again, such "improvement" can only be measured against the standard of an actual god/goddess/pantheon/whatever.

Here's the problem: nobody has ever come close to demonstrating that an actual god/goddess/pantheon/whatever actually exists. ...

[...]

About an adequate and up to date concept of God which atheists should get themselves acquainted with, prior to considering the evidence (which concept of evidence is begging for concurrence from both or all parties concerned with evidence available or not available or impossible at all to come onto), let me bring to your attention that the atheists in Finland have attempted to produce an adequate concept of God, even though it is not updated as to contain only what really should count for God -- even among atheists who just lack any belief in gods, goddesses, deities, divinities, etc.

God: A deity or a god, is a postulated supernatural entity, usually, but not always, of significant power, worshipped, thought holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, or respected by humans. They assume a variety of forms, but are frequently depicted as having human or animal form.

Sometimes it is considered blasphemous to imagine the deity as having any concrete form. They are usually immortal. They are commonly assumed to have personalities and to possess consciousness, intellects, desires, and emotions much like humans.

Such natural phenomena as lightning, floods, storms, other "acts of God”, and miracles are attributed to them, and they may be thought to be the authorities or controllers of every aspect of human life (such as birth or the afterlife).

Some deities are asserted to be the directors of time and fate itself, to be the givers of human law and morality, to be the ultimate judges of human worth and behaviour, and to be the designers and creators of the Earth or the universe.

Do you notice that Finnish atheists have the feeling that they should produce an adequate concept of God, that is why they have such a long description of God; but they finally at the end of their long description thought that they really had to include the concept of God that trutly counts for atheists to lack any belief in, namely, the very last line of their long much aspired after adequate definition of God,

"the designers and creators of the Earth or the universe."

So the Finnish atheists saved the day, by adding at the end of their concept of God or their information of the concept of God, these final words:

"the designers and creators of the Earth or the universe."

A good editor would have told them to just delete everything in their long definition and keep the last line:

God: A deity or a god, is a postulated supernatural entity, usually, but not always, of significant power, worshipped, thought holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, or respected by humans. They assume a variety of forms, but are frequently depicted as having human or animal form.

Sometimes it is considered blasphemous to imagine the deity as having any concrete form. They are usually immortal. They are commonly assumed to have personalities and to possess consciousness, intellects, desires, and emotions much like humans.

Such natural phenomena as lightning, floods, storms, other "acts of God”, and miracles are attributed to them, and they may be thought to be the authorities or controllers of every aspect of human life (such as birth or the afterlife).

Some deities are asserted to be the directors of time and fate itself, to be the givers of human law and morality, to be the ultimate judges of human worth and behaviour, and to bethe designers and creators of the Earth or the universe.

So, do you get my idea that atheists have got to have some information about the concept of God that counts, prior to considering the evidence or the lack of evidence for the existence of God.

So, do you get my idea that atheists have got to have some information about the concept of God that counts, prior to considering the evidence or the lack of evidence for the existence of God.

Actually, in a way, I do. One of the main points Smith makes in "Atheism: The Case Against God" is that you have to define something before you can discuss whether it exists -- and no one agrees on what a deity is. Even Christians don't agree on the nature of their deity. Some are Trinitarians, some are not. Mormons believe that the deity is a flesh-and-blood being, which most other Christians obviously do not.

We don't have this difficulty with most other matters, whether it's alien spacecraft, life on other planets, or the Loch Ness Monster. Everyone is more or less agreed on the concept of the Loch Ness Monster, so discussion of evidence for the existence of that creature actually proceeds pretty easily. This isn't even remotely the case with deities, which is why an atheist will sometimes say, "Look, we can't discuss the existence of a deity if you can't even define one. Figure out what you're talking about and get back to me." Our own Hatter23, for example, when confronted with someone attempting to convince him that God exists, will often start his response with, "Define God. Do not use weasel words. Explain how your definition is not logically self-contradictory."

The difference that you're not getting, which has been pointed out to your repeatedly, is that it is not the responsibility of the atheist to create the concept. That is the believer's burden.

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[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

Do you notice that Finnish atheists have the feeling that they should produce an adequate concept of God, that is why they have such a long description of God; but they finally at the end of their long description thought that they really had to include the concept of God that trutly counts for atheists to lack any belief in, namely, the very last line of their long much aspired after adequate definition of God,

"the designers and creators of the Earth or the universe."

In the modern world, there is no reason to posit the notion that the universe had to have a designer and creator. Thus, you can understand why it would NOT NECESSARILY form part of OUR concept of God. It is obvious that people of ignorance require this as part of their concept of God, but that's not OUR concept, it's theirs. There is enough information out there that science has given us that we just don't need to say there was a creator and designer. Do you understand that this is probably what you, yourself are lacking in this case? As an analogy, imagine you knew nothing about germs and bacteria and you had an infection on your arm. Since you didn't understand about bacteria, you might not understand how it could be anything other than some sort of punishment from a willful being. But it's not. It's just bacteria. People who didn't know about bacteria needed to explain what was happening somehow, so they made stuff up. We know more now though. We don't have to make things up anymore. It is the same with the creation of the universe. We just don't need to say there was a god involved. It could have happened naturally.

So the Finnish atheists saved the day, by adding at the end of their concept of God or their information of the concept of God, these final words:

"the designers and creators of the Earth or the universe."

If you read the definition of God that the Finnish atheists use, there are many terms such as 'usually', and 'sometimes', and 'frequently'. The reason for this is because everyone has a different definition of God, Sus. What are you having a hard time with here? The concept of god is in the hands of each individual person. Even the portion of the sentence you quoted started with the word 'Some', which means that not all gods fit the role of 'designers and creators of the universe'. Read it again and you will see that. Here it is...

Some deities are asserted to be the directors of time and fate itself, to be the givers of human law and morality, to be the ultimate judges of human worth and behaviour, and to be the designers and creators of the Earth or the universe.

Long story short, not all gods are / were thought of as designers and creators of the universe. This is YOUR concept of God, but not everyone would agree.

A good editor would have told them to just delete everything in their long definition and keep the last line:

"the designers and creators of the Earth or the universe."

You mean that if YOU were editing the definition to agree with what YOU believed, the last section of the last sentence would be the only thing left? How very egocentric of you. You discount all the other thousands of gods which have been postulated throughout the centuries that have nothing to do with the design and creation of the universe.

But it doesn't matter. This whole thing is about your concept of God. We aren't going to sit here and demolish every single notion of god that has every been uttered, we are just going to demolish yours. And your concept of God apparently includes the design and creation of the universe. This is the year 2012, however. As I said before, there is no reason to posit that such a being exists, because the universe operates as if no designer or creator exists. But if you want to use this as part of your defense for your concept of God being true, then please state your case and move on because you're just boring the crap out of everyone by going over and over this as if we don't get it. Stop embarrassing yourself and understand that we now know that this is part of the concept of God you are going to defend. It's part of your concept of God. Though we disagree that it is necessary, we understand what you mean by it. We got it. Move on.

So, do you get my idea that atheists have got to have some information about the concept of God that counts, prior to considering the evidence or the lack of evidence for the existence of God.

See above.

BTW, either you are having a hard time keeping up with the responses, or you are intentionally ignoring all of my posts. If I wanted to be ignored, I'd tell my kids to clean their rooms. I don't need it in here too.

I'd like you to stop ignoring what I write. Thank you.

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Whenever events that are purported to occur in our best interest are as numerous as the events that will just as soon kill us, then intent is hard, if not impossible to assert. NDT